Handwriting woes

[True Blue]

I have my almost 10-year old doing HWT printing and cursive books again. It's greatly improved his handwriting IN THE BOOKS. How do I get him to print neatly and legibly on regular lined paper? My other kids all seemed to graduate to lined paper effortlessly so this is new to me. Thanks!

[Stacy in NJ]

HWOT has a desk strip.http://shopping.hwtears.com/product/Cursive_Alphabet_Desk_Strips/cursive Stick/Tape this to his usual writing space, give him a wide ruled note book and then do some simple dictation. He can refer to the strip for letter formation as he's writing. Slowly but increasingly require that he write in his notebooks/workbooks in cursive.

[Laurie4b]

A few things: get him the kind of lined paper with slightly raised lines. They carry it cheap at Wal-mart now. It does look like second grader paper, though. You can make your own (but it's tedious) by underlining each line with pencil, pressing hard. Have him then write on the other side of the paper.

Write a line of copywork on the actual paper you use and have him copy right underneath it. He'll still have his stimulus , but you will have transitioned him to the actual paper. Gradually fade out the stimulus (write more lightly), then start dictating sentences.

If his handwriting degenerates when he is trying to write his own thoughts, that is probably dyslexic dysgraphia. What happens is that the brain gets overwhelmed with generating the thought plus spelling plus capitalization plus punctuation plus handwriting. The handwriting goes.

If you haven't already started, I would begin teaching him keyboarding. If he's having that much trouble with handwriting at that age, it's likely he needs the "work-around" strategy, Nowadays, we do almost all of our writing at a computer, so it's good to give him a leg up on that skill anyway.

[True Blue]

This is actually what I've been trying to do this year but he had a lot of struggles. Now that he has been able to concentrate and comprehend things better due to dx and meds I should try again I guess. Thanks.

[True Blue]

I do want to start him on typing soon. I'm a little concerned about his small motor skills development. Like I told Stacy above we had a disastrous year and now things are so much better. I'm just still suffering from the bad memories of his frustration and inability. Taking a deep breath and starting again. I guess I was hoping to get around all that hard work again. Silly me. Thanks for the post. :)